Are we not capable of a little better?

Off-topic Chatter
131

While BLF is a friendly place I think most long term members would agree that BLF use to be even better.

As for links to evidence, well BLF is meant to be family friendly, some members have commented that they do have children reading over their shoulders. So cursing, personal attacks are deleted by Mr.Admin when it’s brought to his attention. You’d have to be in the thread when it happens to see some things. There have been a few threads that just went bad in short order, heated fights involving multiple people. Mr.Admin has nuked the whole thread to get people to move on / calm down.

132

Someone mentioned that we could use a little more/stricter moderation. I’d like to remind everyone that we are mostly self-moderated around here. Mr. Admin is trusting us to keep ourselves under control. He steps in when needed, if something is brought to his attention. But, there are no other moderators around. Nobody is breathing down our necks or cracking a whip to keep us in line. I think self-moderation is a wonderful feature of this forum. But, as has been mentioned, we’ve been growing a lot lately (even since I’ve been here). It has been suggested that new people need some time to adjust to this forum. Part of the adjustment is learning how to self-moderate their own behavior.

One of the obstacles we must overcome is the multi-national/multi-cultural reach of this forum. Different cultures have different social norms that when mixed together in a forum like this, tend to need adjusting, adapting, and sometimes great swings of compromise. Add to that the adjustment of the older members to the changing of the overall mood/environment from new unique individuals adding their own flavor. Then, shake it all up with the occasional troll that somehow finds his way here and needs to be dealt with.

If we’re to keep the original spirit of this forum intact (or bring it back, for those who think it’s already gone), we need everyone doing our part. We need the older members to step up with gentle, peaceful, gracious reminders from time-to-time that this is a self-moderated site and that each of us is responsible for our own behavior. We need the older-but-still-new-ish members to help the newest members understand the concept of self-moderation and learn to honor the olders and make the adjustments necessary to get along. In other words, the o-b-s-n members can help bridge the “generation gap” for new members. We need everyone to keep up the work of not arguing, fighting, trolling, and insulting other members. And we need to all be less offended ourselves. If we’ll all practice a little more grace and patience with each other, it would go a long way.

One thing I’ve realized about myself is that I’m guilty of feeding trolls. I have a tendency to assume every conversation is based on facts and opinions - information. I’m a thinker, not a feeler. So, I don’t comprehend people getting emotional in a discussion. Well, apparently, trolls do what they do for purely emotional reasons. So, while I’m banging away yet another “informative” post designed to help someone understand some point I’ve tried to make, it often just gets chalked up to another win in the troll’s score book. So, I’ve begun to try to pull back on the reins a little. I don’t want trolls to thrive on BLF. I want trolls to starve here, so they leave and look for another place to be.

I want to make clear that I agree with everyone who says this is still one of the best forums on the ’net. But, I also agree with the OP and others, that we can make it even better, and keep it that way, if we’ll be more conscious of what we’re saying and how we’re saying it, and how it might be taken.

133

How Bout Them Broncos? :wink:

I had no stake in that game either way, wanted to see the best from both of them. The Bronco defense was amazing! I figured it’d be tight, and of course there were a few calls…. overall though it was a good game without much real excitement. Aside from one or two guys getting their emotions tweaked, it was pretty much a Drama Free Zone. lol

Wonder what that pays? Maybe I need to be on a winning SuperBowl team? Do they need a Flashaholic on the bench? :stuck_out_tongue:

Did anyone see Manning interviewed at the end? Calm cool and collected, humble, giving due credit to the team, the defense, and Anderson specifically, the coaches, even his friends and family that supported him and helped make it possible for him to have the drive to continue and go so far. Nicely played, on and off the field.

134

Good points guys.

As DavidEF mentioned, the self-moderation aspect of BLF is pretty unique, and is probably not well understood by newcomers. That made me think that I should probably more frequently re-post some of my little explanations of the BLF rules, how to deal with trolls, etc., so that newcomers actually read the information when they see it in the Recent Posts list.

135

I don’t mean to appear dense, but I’m still not sure exactly what it means to be a troll? How do they get online? Isn’t reception bad under those old stone bridges? But seriously, I’m not sure I understand what constitutes the troll characterization. Only posting to stir up the dredge? Posting to point people in a direction that profits the poster? “Trolling” for comments like fishing the waters?Not sure I get it. (Ok, I CAN be pretty dense sometimes, and will probably forget even once I understand it, if I ever do.)

While I’m NOT blonde, I can relate…

An Irishman , Mexican and a Blonde Guy were doing construction work on scaffolding on the 20th floor of a building.

They were eating lunch and the Irishman said,
“Corned beef and cabbage! If I get corned beef and cabbage one more time for lunch, I’m going to jump off this building.”

The Mexican opened his lunch box and exclaimed, “Burritos again! If I get Burritos one more time I’m going to jump off, too.”

The blonde guy opened his lunch and said, ” Bologna again! If I get a bologna sandwich one more time, I’m jumping too.”

The next day, the Irishman opened his lunch box, saw corned beef and cabbage, and jumped to his death…
The Mexican opened his lunch, saw a Burritos, and jumped, too…
The blonde guy opened his lunch, saw the bologna and jumped to his death as well.

At the funeral, the Irishman’s wife was weeping. She said, “If I’d known how really tired he was of corned beef and cabbage , I never would have given it to him again!”

The Mexican’s wife also wept and said, “I could have given him tacos or enchiladas! I didn’t realize he hated Burritos so much.”

Everyone turned and stared at the blonde guy’s wife. With a look of exasperation and a shrug of her shoulders, she said…

“Don’t look at me. He makes his own lunch”

136

Yeah, it’s a rather nebulous term isn’t it?

I tend to think of it more or less like that. But with that being said, I would strongly encourage everyone to please not publicly call out a user as a “troll”, because if they are a troll it will just egg them on, and if they aren’t really a troll it will offend them unnecessarily. Here’s a post I wrote up about the subject:

137

Haaaaa! Classic!

138

I don’t know why the name “troll” was originally used, but usually a “troll” is someone who posts things just to get attention and/or get a reaction from someone. They don’t actually want to contribute to the discussion, they just want to mess with people.

Wikipedia definition:

Or were you trolling us with that question, Dale? :expressionless:

139

My sister used to play with those! Way back when… heck, she might still for all I know! :smiley:

140

DBC, as a blonde guy with an advancing forehead, I resemble that remark. (grin)

I have a collection of redneck jokes I can tell (exaggerating my honestly-home-grown Southern accent) in reply to ethnic cracks.
I don’t need to do that here, it almost never gets hostile.

I believe silence is the best answer to irritation, let it go on by (and learn from it)
Often enough I look back and people have removed their own irate posts
(and I’ve done that myself, if I slip and make a crack or respond to one).

Trolling — look at the trolling FAQ for the Usenet history; that’s applicable to blogs as well as the other newer media.
It’s done by individuals; sometimes it’s done by organized groups, and can get quite nasty.

We’re blessed here by a forum that helps focus on a common interest where we can work together — and that overcomes our differences.

141

SB, what about a recent posts sticky with your posting about the Rules. The recent posts are a cascade, stuff can drop off the front page in a matter of an hour, some sort of sticky or banner with your rules and thoughts on them would help….

No idea how feasible this would be as I am not a website maker…

142

I think it better to have to bump “how to deal with trolls” since it requires an active effort to move it back up the list and is a low key way to post a reminder without actually posting something new. Better to bump that thread than say anything else.

143

It's so difficult dealing with Trolls

It's been said they don't even have souls

Please try never to feed them

We really don't need them

Preventing us reaching our goals

144

Well said

145

I’m still a bit of a newbie around here, so take my observation with a grain of salt.

I think a problem with groupbuy complainers is that they aren’t really familiar with the fact that this is budget light forum. New people who join just for a GB expect the level of quality of the GB lights to be the same as items or lights they already own (Fenix, Nitecore, etc.). They aren’t familiar with the small cosmetic, or functional problems that some of these lights have here and there, so they become upset and vocal for that fact. If they hung around here a bit and became more familiar with how things are, maybe they’ll tone down what they believe they will receive.

A simple idea that quickly comes to mind to remedy this could be to only allow accounts that are at least 2 weeks old (or something like that) to be able to join a GB.

146

@jescereal: Yes, there’s definitely a bit of a learning curve for new buyers when it comes to buying from Chinese vendors and having reasonable quality and delivery time expectations.

147

What we really need here on BLF is a page with a recompilation of all of Jack’s fantastic limericks!

148

I’ve been on many forums, and have never seen the word troll used as much as it is here. It actually seems to be meant to anger the person that posted something a person didn’t agree with. Ironically the person doing the name calling is often the only troll. I agree this forum strives for better more than any other. But I don’t think it achieves more than any other.

Of all the forums I have been on, I have never seen a simple disagreement lose its civility except for here. Of all the forums I have been on, I have never been called a troll except for here. Of all the forums I have been on, I have never been passively threatened, except for here.

149

Perhaps that’s because the standards of expected behavior are higher here?

(Not necessarily a good thing: there’s less tolerance, there are more seemingly punitive responses.)

150

Heh, okay, well at the risk of being ironic:

(1) You haven’t been on many Internet forums, or
(2) You’re trolling. (Yeah, this is where it becomes ironic.)

Seriously, if you have been threatened, how about a link to the post, rather than just claim it?